2021-3-7, The Meaning of Love: Love Celebrates Truth, 1 Cor 13:6
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2021-3-7, The Meaning of Love: Love Celebrates Truth, 1 Cor 13:6
Not Crossing a Line
Not Crossing a Line
Deitrich Bonhoefer
“Church, Remain a Church!”
In 1933, when Hitler came to power, many German pastors thought the Nationalistic Socialism of the Nazi party was helping the church to love their neighbors. Some went so far to say that Christ had become effective among them because Hitler came to power. Politics had allowed “positive Christianity in action!” There was a lot of celebrating in the church.
But there were a lot of problems with this. There was a trend among the pastors to exalt Hitler and be more excited about him than they were Christ. As Nazism gained a foothold, new rules were accepted in the church that no one with Jewish blood could become a Christian pastor. It was called the Aryan Clause. As time went on, it became more and more dangerous to speak against the government.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Franz Hildebrandt were pastors in German and they loved the German church, but they were worried about the German church. Bonhoeffer emphatically admonished his fellow pastors that Christians must be followers of Christ, not Hitler. They were committing idolatry in their zeal for the man. Further, Franz was a Jewish Christian and had been banned from pastoring in Germany.
In May of 1934, they formed the “Confessing Church.” They accepted a confession of faith which stated: “We [reject] the false teaching that there are areas of our life in which we belong not to Jesus Christ but to other lords.” In signing their confession, they became enemies of the state, and monitored by Hitler’s secret police.
Bonhoeffer knew that the church’s love was compromised because it was not holding to the truth. It could not be called agape love when it was tainted with idolatry and racism.
This is an important message for us too. If we are going to love others with agape love, then we cannot allow it to become mixed with wrongdoing or sin.
This is what the next verse in the Love chapter teaches us about agape love...
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
This is challenging more than ever, because we live in a world that says that love doesn’t concern itself with right or wrong. It argues that wrong in the world is to believe that there is a right and wrong. No, love according to our world means to support people as they do whatever is right in their own eyes.
Well, that doesn’t mesh well with the Bible’s definition of loving behavior.
We, as Christians, are called to love our neighbors. Yet, we are also called to love God and to see things from His worldview. So how do we love people and hold unwaveringly to what God says is right and wrong, to what God says is true or false?
Let’s answer this by going through Paul’s teaching on love.
General Definition of Agape Love
General Definition of Agape Love
Agape love is a strong affection for people which seeks God’s good for them. One of the primary features of agape love is the willing sacrifice of our rights and privileges so that other people may have God’s good. This kind of love originates in the heart of God.
But look back at this definition, specifically to the part which says it seeks “God’s good”. What is God’s good? This is good as defined by God. Without fail, God’s good always includes the truth. Truth also originates in the heart of God.
Definition of Truth
Definition of Truth
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Jesus completely equated Himself with the truth. Such statements affirm His divinity, because truth is of God.
Truth is what is so according to God the ultimate authority.
It refers to physical facts involving time, space, and mass.
It includes conceptual facts (2+2=4; logic).
Truth also includes spiritual facts (God is Spirit, Jesus the Son of God who died for the sins of the world and was raised).
Truth also includes moral facts- declarations that certain attitudes, words, or actions are intrinsically right or wrong, true or false.
Praise be to God that He’s given us His Word and the Holy Spirit so we can know truth facts, especially spiritual and moral ones.
Now, let’s return to love, the principle we need to grasp this morning is that: Truth and agape love are inseparable. They go together and love is dependent on the truth.
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love Cannot Rejoice in or Condone Sin
Love Cannot Rejoice in or Condone Sin
Paul says that when we love one another, there cannot a joyful celebration (rejoice) about the things which God has called wrong (a.k.a.- sin, unrighteousness, wickedness, evil). Nor should there be a quiet acceptance of sin or falsehood.
The Church at Corinth had a problem with celebrating or condoning wicked things:
Remember they were suing one another.
They were prejudicial toward one another and excluding one another based on class, talent, and spiritual giftedness.
They tolerated egregious sexual sin in the church (Incest and adultery).
Some of the Christians held on to the teachings of false teachers (Like that Jesus was not raised from the dead).
They divided themselves into factions.
Everyone of these was a violation of the truth. In the shadow of these offenses against God’s truth, they suggested that they were managing to fulfill the command of Christ to love (love feasts).
Paul’s response, “Nope! You cannot fulfill the command to love one another while rejoicing in, celebrating, permitting, condoning, sympathizing with or excusing ideas and actions contrary to His truth.”
Logical Sense
Logical Sense
This makes logical sense right? How can you seek God’s good (that they would know the truth and be set free) for a person and celebrate or condone his adherence to something sinful or false? This is a contradiction of love.
God says that sin and idolatry leads to death and destruction (Romans 6:23). So how could an agape-loving Christian condone such actions and let that person walk willfully into destruction? That’s not loving at all!
Celebration of the Truth
Celebration of the Truth
Instead, agape love is accompanied by our celebration of the truth (rejoice).
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Truth is intricately woven into agape love. So there should be a constant affirmation of God’s truth in our loving. Our words and actions should be laced with praise for God’s truth. We rejoice about it.
I like to use Philippians 4:8. Philippians is one of the most endearing and loving books in the Bible. The agape love runs deep between Paul and the Christians in Philippi. It’s no coincident that Philippians is also a book which celebrates God’s truth.
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
and, of course
8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Philippians makes bold statements about moral and spiritual truth and agape love.
As we live life, love God, and love our neighbors, these things should be on our lips and in our hearts. We rejoice in them because they are of God.
So, what does it mean not to rejoice in wrongdoing, but to rejoice in the truth in our love. What does this mean, practically?
1. We do agape love to all people. Meet needs for people, share Christ, show kindness, serve others, give away what we own to the poor, give grace and bear with one another, be patient, bless people, pray for people, etc. Under-girding our every attitude, word, and action is the sincere desire that they would arrive at God’s good. We sacrifice our rights and privileges to get them there.
2. In the course of loving, when we see attitudes and actions which affirm God’s truth, we need to point it out and we praise it. We do not take it for granted but celebrate it. Whatever gets celebrated gets repeated.
“That is true.” “That was honorable.” “That was just.” “That was like Christ and worthy of praise.” “That forwarded the kingdom of God.” “That showed a servant’s heart.” “That exalted Christ.” “That calls God the Creator.” We should talk about the truth. Our actions should support the truth (time, talents, and treasure)
We should do this in our church
In our families.
In our country.
3. Now for the hard one...When we see wrong doing or falsehoods, it should grieve our hearts. In love, our heart’s desire should be to see people stop walking in the dark and to walk in the light instead (this is God’s good right?).
We must...
keep loving
be vocal
avoid silence
be consistent with the truth in our actions.
We must not join in
27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
We need to be careful that our loving actions are not signaling that we condone a wicked behavior.
This means that we may have to find a different way to love someone so as not to show we are affirming the wrongs they are doing or the falsehoods they are believing.
Ideally...
When we see wrongdoing, we need to call it out according to the Word of God, call for repentance, and point people to Christ in love.
This takes courage.
This takes courage.
This takes courage. We have to have the integrity to make clear what God says is true. This is a major missing component in churches today.
We don’t do this because we do not like confrontation, we don’t know what God’s word calls right or wrong. We are terrified of giving offense or of going against the cultural grain.
If we fail to call out sin, then people may not know that they are sinning against God or they may believe God is okay with their sin. Either of these would be tragic. So we need to speak up and be specific about attitudes, words, and actions which are against the Truth.
For their Good
So take Christians, church members. How do we act loving? We rejoice in God’s truth
The church is a place for sinners to come and experience redemption. It’s sinner’s rehab. Every person her that is a member is a sinner saved by grace. We agree in the common goal of all of us striving to live as holy men, women, boys, and girls, to the glory of Christ who saved us.
But what do we do if we have Christian brothers or sisters who wants to be in our fellowship but rejoice in wrongdoing and falsehood. They want to hold on to their sin? This happens, most commonly sexual sin, adultery, pornography, cohabitating, LGBTQ+ lifestyles; dishonesty, and theft, drug use, degrading attitudes about people of other ethnicities.
God tells us to have a crucial conversation with them and lead them to repentance because this get’s them back on the path of God’s good.
This is the purpose of Matthew 18:15
15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.
James, the brother of Jesus put it this way...
19 My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, 20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
Scripture says addressing sin in the lives of others is in and of itself is an act of agape love toward the brethren. It supports us all growing in holiness.
Do Christians like it when we confront each other in sin. Of course not, but remember, the part of them that gets mad is the flesh. The flesh hates to be exposed as unrighteous. Flesh puffs up the pride which takes offense. The flesh makes people cry out “to each his own,” “if it floats your boat, do it!” “My life, my business, if it doesn’t hurt anyone.” But the flesh is not acting for God’s good for that person. To let a brother or sister follow sin to their demise is not agape love.
In Christians, the Holy Spirit in us leads us to listen and repent and then rejoice in God’s Truth.
We show agape love for one another when we rejoice in the truth and refuse to rejoice in wrong doing.
Lost people
Lost people
Regarding lost people…What do they need to have God’s good? They need to repent of their sins and believe in Christ and call on Him as Savior and Lord.
32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
1. Keep loving
2. Rejoice in the truth
3. Do not rejoice in wrong doing and call it out and call people to repentance. We need to make sure our behaviors are not interpreted as condoning.
In this we advance the Kingdom. Agape love is the motivation behind the Great Commission.
Prayers for you as you learn to love.
ABCs
Repentance